


Holly Tree

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Familial Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 08:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When James and Lily die, Snape gets custody of Harry. He resolves to raise him to prove that James could have been just as spiteful, bitter and hateful as Snape himself is, given the right circumstances. </p><p>Set around the late 18th - early 19th century, very loosely a <i>Wuthering Heights</i> AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holly Tree

**Author's Note:**

> So, this story is set in the wizarding canon, but shifted back about 200 years. It's very loosely inspired by _Wuthering Heights_ , with Snape as Heathcliff, Harry as Hareton, and Draco as Cathy. But that's about where the similarities go to die. 
> 
> I hope someone enjoys it? I realize I'm aiming at kinda a niche market here, but oh well!

The tree has pale bark and a strong trunk which tilts heavily to the side. The branches splay upwards, and the roots weave downwards. The tree is covered with spiny green holly leaves and small, red poisonous drupes. The tree grows at the far end of the Malfoy’s sprawling estate.

Harry Potter grew up at this far end of the grounds, in a small subsidiary house at the back of the estate. It may once have been considered for a leisure house, a home away from home, but under his Snape’s hand it has fallen to disrepair.

Snape is Harry’s legal guardian. Harry has never found much leisure in his home, here, but he’s always loved the Holly tree.

\---

The roots under the tree are the reason it has grown so crooked. They are expansive and wild. Some grow up out of the ground, glancing just out of the grass, gnarled and ugly. Most are hidden deep, buried in the dirt with the worms and the bones of the dead. But they have shaped the tree. They give it its structure, its form.

\---

Like Harry, Severus Snape grew up on the outskirts of Malfoy Manor. When he was a child, he would wander down by a nearby river in the muggle part of the county. There was another boy, Lucius, who lived up in the manor, but he was a few years older than Snape and didn’t care to play with him.

Down by the river, Severus met Lily Evans. It is her bones that have shaped the way that Snape has grown so gnarled and ugly.

\---

When Harry gets his Hogwarts letter, he hands it over to Snape without a word. He knew it was coming, and he knew what Snape would do. Snape writes back to the headmaster at Hogwarts. Harry doesn’t know what it is that he writes, but no other letter ever comes, and Harry stays at home. He does what Snape asks him to do. He cleans the house to a rudimentary degree. He tends the gardens. He only asks once if he can go to Hogwarts, and Snape says no, so Harry accepts it.

Snape is the only father Harry has ever known.

Sometimes, when he’s alone, Harry closes his eyes and touches the leaves on some of the shrubs and rose bushes in the garden. He lets his magic flow out of him like sunlight, and the flowers bloom under his touch.

\---

‘You’re a witch,’ Severus says to Lily, as she brings the flower in the palm of her hand to bloom, lets it wilt, and lets it bloom.

Lily and her sister are both named after flowers.

She looks surprised. ‘I don’t know how I do what I do,’ she says. ‘Mother says I shouldn’t do it.’

Severus doesn’t understand muggles. They talk of the value of reason and rationality, but they worship unseeable beings that make intangible miracles come true. When they see real magic, they stifle it or burn it.

‘Next year you’ll come to school with me,’ Severus tells Lily. She is amazed, because though her mother taught her to read and write, she never expected to attend an institution for anything more than a basic education.

Lily becomes Severus’s best friend. They spend almost the whole year before they attend Hogwarts by the riverside. Lily is good at making trees grow and flowers bloom.

Severus is good at making them wilt and die. It is destructive magic, but Lily teaches him to make things blossom.

Snape knows that if Lily had lived, even if she never loved him, he might have seen the Holly tree grow straighter, taller.

\---

Harry and the boy who lives in the manor are the same age. His name is Draco. He has pale hair and skin.

The first time Harry meets him, he makes him bleed. He doesn’t mean to. They are both nine years old.

‘Are you a servant?’ Draco asks, approaching Harry. He is carrying a broomstick. Harry has a broomstick: he sweeps the floors with it. He doesn’t think the clean, pale boy in front of him ever sweeps the floors.

‘No,’ says Harry. ‘Not yours.’

Draco looks at him appraisingly. ‘Good. I need someone to play with.’ Harry has never played with another boy in his life. His hard skips a beat. ‘Do you have a broom?’

‘Yes,’ Harry says.

‘Can you fly?’ Draco asks. Harry has done many magical things in his life, by mistake. He has brought his garden to life, he has made it die. He has spoken to a snake about a wild cat in the hedges and hidden the adder under his bed for the night. He has never flown, though.

‘Er,’ he says.

The other boy rolls his eyes. ‘I can teach you,’ he offers. ‘I’m a very good flyer. Get your broom.’

The broom Harry uses to clean up is in the kitchen. It is ragged and home-made. Draco laughs at him when he brings it outside.

‘ _That_ isn’t a flying broom!’ the boy sneers. ‘What are you? A squib?’

Harry doesn’t know exactly what a squib is. Snape calls him that name though, here and there. When Harry has done something wrong. When he’s… made something happen.

Harry feels shame burn in his stomach at Draco’s laughter. He feels embarrassed, and then he feels angry.

A tree branch snaps off from the Holly tree. Draco is standing directly underneath, and falls as it hits him. The cut down his temple and cheek isn’t deep, but it bleeds red, and Draco starts to cry.

He’s crying, as young boys unused to getting hurt are likely to do, but the look he shoots Harry is poisonous. Harry apologises over and over and over, and takes the boy back to his manor, where he is left behind at the gate.

‘Squibs can’t come inside,’ Draco says, as he leaves Harry behind. He’s stopped crying. He’s stopped bleeding too. ‘Only _real_ wizards.’

\---

There is a boy called James Potter in Severus’s year level. They despise each other.

When James makes Lily fall in love with him while they’re still only teenagers, Severus swears that he will hate James forever.

When James and Lily die, Severus swears his hatred will not die with them.

The infant son they leave behind carries James’s name. So did Lily, in the end. Snape hates the name. It is like a rot, a mould that infects and destroys everything it touches. That name took away Severus’s dignity, more times in school than he cares to count. But worse, it took Lily from him.

Although not so much so that he doesn’t gain legal guardianship of their child when they die. There was a godfather, but he takes revenge on the dark wizard that betrayed Lily and James, and is soon out of the picture. Snape doesn’t have to try hard to gain custody of the Potter boy.

Part of him loves part of the child. The child has Lily’s green eyes, and when he looks into them, he thinks the boy is his own son, or could have been.

But the child looks more like James with every day, and Snape is determined to give him the life that James _should_ have had.

\---

Draco is the only friend Harry has. He visits sometimes, not often, and mocks Harry for being a squib. He shows Harry how he flies on his broom until Harry can’t help but ask if he can try. Draco laughs, and says he wouldn’t trust his broom with someone like Harry.

They sit under the Holly tree together, and Harry shows Draco his garden. Shows him how he uses his magic to bring it to life. He speaks in hushed tones in case Snape hears from inside. Draco likes the garden, but he doesn’t think Harry’s magic is impressive.

‘Next year, I’ll be going to Hogwarts,’ he says. ‘To learn _real_ magic.’

‘Oh,’ Harry says. He wants to ask if he’ll be going too. But what he says is: ‘How long will you be gone?’

Draco replies that he’ll visit in the holidays, if he has time. ‘But I expect I’ll be busy,’ he sniffs.

\---

‘You’re parents _were_ magical,’ Snape tells Harry, when he asks. ‘Your mother was a fantastic witch.’

Harry’s pulse races. Maybe he will go to Hogwarts, maybe he’ll be able to tell Draco tomorrow that he’ll be going with him. That they’ll be going together.

‘But you don’t take after her,’ Snape says coldly. ‘You take after your good-for-nothing father. There is nothing for you to learn. You haven’t got a magical bone in your body. Even if you get the letter, I won’t have you going to Hogwarts. It’s for you own good.’

‘How?’ Harry asks. He’s angry, but he tries to keep it out of his voice. ‘How is that for my own good? I want to go!’

‘Do you?’ Snape sneers. ‘Tell me how much you would _want_ to be there when you can’t do any of the spells, when you can’t make the potions, when you’re taunted day in day out by classmates who _pity_ you, because you are a pathetic, useless squib just like your father.’

Harry is silent. He wants to shout that his father was not a squib, but then, he never knew his father.

Maybe his father was just as devoid of _real_ magic as he is.

\---

Harry sits in the shade of the Holly tree, and watches Malfoy leave with his mother and father for the train to Hogwarts on the first day. He’s tugging a trunk behind him, which reminds Harry how long he will be gone. These are going to be some lonely months.

Draco glances over just as he’s about to head out of sight. He waves at Harry in good-bye. There is a wand in his hand, Harry can see it against the clear sky.

\---

Harry thinks about that wand for weeks and weeks before he does anything. He sees the things Snape conjures with his own wand. Sees the bubbling potions he stirs with it. Harry wants to be able to do that.

But only real wizards have wands.

It’s dark when Harry steals out of their little house to the Holly tree. He nearly trips over one of the gnarled roots. The tree is nearly bare, since its late-autumn. It won’t be too long before Draco is back for the winter holidays.

In the shadow of night, Harry reaches up into the tree, and snaps off a low hanging branch. It is narrow, but fairly firm. Far too long, Harry thinks, swinging it with his hand, but he has a carving knife up at the house.

He’ll just have to hide the branch under his bed like he did that snake until it’s ready. Snape cannot know about it.

\---

Draco is back for Christmas. Harry has a whittled wand made from his Holly branch. Draco has a neat, dark wand. It is ten inches long, made of Hawthorn and unicorn hair. Draco tells Harry this with an air of pride.

‘I’ve learnt so much at Hogwarts,’ he tells Harry excitedly. ‘I could turn your precious garden to stone if I wanted to.’

Harry raises an eyebrow. He knows Draco would never do that. Even now he’s running his fingers over some golden mountain flowers that Harry has kept alive even in the depth of the cold and ice.

Harry only uses his core-less wand when he knows Snape is nowhere around, but his garden has been blooming even better than it ever has with its help.

Draco smirks and leans back to look at Harry.

‘Care to duel, Potter?’ he asks, teasingly. He’s joking. The joke is that Harry cannot duel. Harry doesn’t have a wand. Harry cannot do magic. Harry is a squib.

‘Alright,’ Harry says, and pulls out his hand-carved wand.

Draco’s face lights up. ‘What is _that?_ ’ he asks. He starts laughing, so hard he has to double over. ‘Is that… Did you make that?’

‘Yeah,’ Harry says.

Draco won’t stop laughing. ‘Merlin, Potter, you really are pathetic.’

The window of the house behind them shatters, interrupting Draco’s laughter. Harry is shaking with rage, his blood pounding in his ears.

Draco’s eyes widen. ‘Was that you?’

Harry just nods. Draco is paler than usual. ‘ _Reparo_ ,’ he says, pointing his Hawthorn wand at the window. The glass flurries up in a sparkling cloud, and settles back in the frame without so much as a crack. Snape’s face appears, glaring daggers at Harry, who is now afraid for himself.

Draco is on his feet, backing away. ‘You can’t control yourself,’ he says. ‘You’re a bloody danger.’

He turns and runs as Snape comes outside, grabs Harry by the collar and shouts, ‘ _What did you do, you pathetic little squib?!_ ’

\---

Draco doesn’t come see Harry at all over the Easter holidays.

Harry doesn’t touch his wand again. He’s feels ashamed. He sticks to gardening and cleaning.

Snape watches him with a keen eye, but everything is peaceful. One evening, Snape looks into Harry’s eyes and says, ‘You should be happy. This home and my inheritance will be yours one day. It’s better than someone like your father ever deserved.’

Harry wonders if it’s true.

\---

Draco sends a house elf to Harry late in the Summer break. Harry is in the garden, lying under his Holly tree. It’s crooked, but it’s heavy with leaves, and the sun is glinting through them, making Harry wonder what it would be like to fly up there, in the warm sky.

‘Master Draco requests your presence,’ the house elf squeaks, and before Harry knows it, he’s in the Malfoy’s drawing room. Draco is there, sitting by the unlit fire place. His mother is with him, a woman who Harry has only seen from a distance. She pulls back from where she was leaning forward, talking sternly to her son, and she smiles at Harry.

‘I held you when you were this small,’ she says to him warmly. ‘I was just telling Draco. You positively sparked with magic.’

Harry flushes, confused. But swiftly, Draco’s mother exits the room, leaving the two boys alone.

Draco pats the couch next to him, and Harry sits down. He startles as Draco holds out his own wand for Harry to take.

‘I want to show you something,’ he says, and plucks a piece of parchment off the side table. ‘The incantation is “ _Wingardium Leviosa_ ”, do you think you can manage that?’

Harry can feel the magic in Draco’s wand. It is making his arm tingle all the way up to his shoulder. Sunlight is streaming in from outside, catching on Malfoy’s white-blond hair. Harry is reminded of the glimmers of sunlight he saw through the leaves of his Holly tree.

By late afternoon, Harry can make the parchment soar.

\---

Summer ends, and Draco returns to Hogwarts. He’s gone far too long, but Harry secretly practises the charms he’d taught him with his own wand.

The results are haphazard and unreliable. Harry knows his wand needs a core. But still, he can do it. He can do _real_ magic.

When Snape derisively calls him a useless squib, it doesn’t carry the same sting.

\---

‘You can’t stay here,’ Draco says to Harry when they’re fourteen and sitting in Harry’s garden, passing Draco’s wand between them. Harry is trying to turn rocks into snails, with some success. The rocks are moving slowly across the ground, leaving trails of slime behind them.

‘I can’t go to Hogwarts,’ Harry replies. ‘Snape would never let me.’

But Draco is right. Harry can’t spend a few weeks of every year learning miscellaneous charms from a boy his own age. Not forever.

\---

The Holly tree is crooked and the roots are dangerously twisted where they emerge from the ground, but still it grows, taller and stronger every year.

‘I bet you could fix it,’ Draco says. His hand is on the small of Harry’s back, and his lips are pressed against Harry’s ear. They’re both holding Draco’s wand with joint fingers.

Harry glances over at the house. Snape is watching them from the window, his expression like an approaching storm. Harry nearly drops the wand, but Draco holds on tight.

‘That tree was planted when my parents died,’ Harry tells Draco. ‘It marks their graves.’

Draco shrugs. Snape is watching the tree like he could make it more twisted and stunted from sheer force of will.

Harry plucks his own ‘wand’ from his back pocket, and uses that instead. He concentrates, and the trunk of the tree straightens, and the roots disappear into the ground. The branches are higher than ever, opening their arms up to the bright sky.

The berries on the tree are red like Lily Evan’s hair. When Harry looks over at Snape again, the storm has receded from his expression, and he just looks lost.

\---

Severus is ten years old, and he’s meeting Lily by the riverside. He wanders through bracken on the ground and low hanging branches till he sees her, ahead, by a bend in the riverside. She beckons to him, a smile on his face, and he follows. They play all day.

\---

Snape slams the door behind him as he leaves the house. He passes Harry and the Malfoy boy, who are in the garden. Harry should be shrinking back in fear, but he’s not. He’s standing tall, and the Malfoy boy is by his back, watching Snape closely.

He ignores them both, and stalks down to the riverside. He wanders through mud and weeds, and ducks under weighted branches until he sees her, ahead, by a bend in the riverside.

She looks the same as she did the day she died, but she’s smiling. She beckons to him.


End file.
